(1)Pac-Man vs (5)Scorpion 2002
Results Thursday, August 22nd, 2002 Ulti's Analysis Go look at the Lara/Crono analysis. The entire thing applies to Pac Man as well. I understand that Pac Man may be a bit more loved universally than Lara Croft, and I'll keep the bashing to a lesser value for him, but the fact remains that Pac Man, like Lara, was an absolute disgrace to his seeding. Pac Man, like Lara, was seeded based off of status. Pac Man, like Lara, was showing warning signs of an inevitable screwup from the opening bell. He allowed a no-name by the name of Goemon to break 25% on him, and a little-known fighting game character to break 35% on him, not necessarily 1-seed-like victories. Pac Man's vote totals and voting draw in each of those matches was also absolutely horrible. But in defense of Pac Man, he was better than Lara Croft in that next to no one actually expected him to lose his third round match. Just look at the prediction percentage. Pac Man may have been horrifically overseeded, but his half division was weak as hell. It isn't like anyone was going to actually beat him despite his weakness, right? Heh, sure. One character was bound to prove just how weak this half division was, and Scorpion wound up being that character. I love upsets as much as anyone else, but when a character like Scorpion is able to make the Elite 8 in such a simple manner, you know something is royally screwed up. This match, while an impressive win for Scorpion, was more a testament to the half division's weakness than it was Scorpion's strength. Fact: If Ken Masters was in this half division, he would have done the exact same thing. Scorpion's run was only unexpected because other fighting series get far more respect than Mortal Kombat does. If Ken was in Scorpion's shoes, I feel that more people would have seen the upset over Pac Man coming. It was nice to see Scorpion do so well, sure, but he was horribly overrated by this board afterwards. Almost half the 2002 field could have won this half division if placed in Scorpion's spot. These eight characters, all of them, were just weak, and it only proved that Link had a free pass into the Final Four. On a side note, I demand someone post the Pac Man strip Penny Arcade made during this match. I can't find it >_> The Penny Arcade Comic Ed Bellis' Analysis The first contest, unpredictable as it was, didn’t really start getting good until this match. This was the match that made everyone stand up and start noticing the contest, all over the Internet – Penny Arcade even did a strip about it. For most people, this came waaay out of left field: Pac-Man, the original gaming icon, losing to a palette swap from Mortal Kombat? But the signs were there – Scorp’s dismantling of Max Payne and Pac’s pitiful performance against bottom-end fodder. We just didn’t know how to look for them then. The match itself was unexciting – Scorpion won by a handy amount – but the fallout and commotion were incredibly intense. People literally could not believe it. This was when the character battles started really getting there, started really being something more. This was the original upset, and it’s still easily one of the best. • Previous Match • Next Match Category: 2002 Contest Matches